Review by Karl Verhoven
Wally West Returns is a bulky collection, but a fragmented one incorporating a run of stories from various creators before Jeremy Adams settles in as regular writer with the final few episodes.
First up is a four parter from Kevin Shinick, who’s very much influenced by the Flash of the 1960s. He requires Flash to solve mysteries while taking on the Trickster, then Doctor Alchemy using scientific knowledge. There are clever moments, but the dialogue sometimes reads as if it’s straight from the 1960s also. “Just what I thought. Alchemy converted the Lighzinium in my ring into something else”, explains Barry Allen looking into a microscope. “I don’t recognise the combination he turned it to, but clearly it has a negative repulsion to the speed force”. “Like two magnets with the same polarity so you couldn’t access the speed force with it on”, finishes off Iris Allen helpfully. So now we know.
A single chapter from a larger crossover seems to be included for the sake of completion. There’s an interesting conversation between Flash and an entitled Black Adam, and a glimpse at a proto-Justice League of the 10th century, but it’s better read with the remainder in Justice League: Endless Winter.
The sheer number of contributing artists is par for the course as Adams continues, giving the impression that anyone who’s ever wanted to draw the Flash just has to text the editor. Clayton Henry’s people are unattractively angular, and their heads can be too small, while Will Conrad emphasises the big moments. The rest work on the title story, where there’s greater logic to multiple artists than it first seems.
Adams restores Wally West as the primary Flash, which is some leap after the events of Heroes in Crisis. He starts, though, with Wally wanting to give up his connection to the speed force, feeling he could again endanger people, but things don’t go to plan, and he ends up bopping about time. That’s where the assorted artists are logical. Marco Santucci draws a lively sequence of Wally facing a speedy velociraptor, David Lafuente deals with Wally in the future, Jack Herbert catches him during World War II, and there’s a cartoon world from Kevin Maguire before a whole host of artists show him traversing the omniverse. Brandon Petersen focuses on Barry Allen in the present.
While starting out as a lot of fun, it turns out to be a clever story. Heroes in Crisis was controversial, and Adams reconfigures what happened in a way that makes sense enabling Wally to continue being a hero. The desperation of the final chapter is set around Wally now knowing more and wanting to change other events. It’s spectacularly drawn by Fernando Pasarin, who becomes the artist of choice accompanying Adams writing.
Some art could be better over the first half of Wally West Returns, but the collection really picks up under Adams, and he continues into Eclipsed.
